When The Indian Express listed India's 100 most powerful people for 2011, top of the list was neither a politician, nor a businessman, but the bookish Supreme Court Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia. It was a sign of the court's growing clout as Kapadia pushes graft probes in a face-off with the government that could worsen policy limbo, discourage investments and threaten Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's survival. Since Kapadia's appointment in May after what was seen as a lacklustre predecessor, the court has criticized Singh for failing to deal with a telecoms scam – India's biggest corruption scandal in decades. It has also overseen investigations into a host of other graft controversies. As Asia's third largest economy booms, the court may become crucial checks and balances in a country increasingly weighed down by corruption in discredited institutions, which by some estimates knocks 1-2 percent off GDP growth. “There has certainly been a sea change in the court's role and the chief justice has provided important impetus,” said Prashant Bhushan, one of India's well-known Supreme Court lawyers who is involved in probing the telecoms scam. “Court activism is not unprecedented,” he said. “But the importance of this court is it comes when levels of corruption are more than ever before and when public outrage is greater than ever before.” The court's growing activism under Kapadia means the government will find it harder to side-step graft probes that threaten to erode its political support ahead of key state elections this year. The face-off, and growing fears from officials that signing off on business contracts often worth billions of dollars may come back to bite them in corruption investigations, may also be starting to be a factor in hindering sorely needed investments.“We can safely expect bureaucrats/politicians to be a lot more cautious, a lot less ready to take decisions that can be later questioned. This will necessarily compound the slowdown that has taken place in investments,” wrote Sunil Jain in The Indian Express. When scandals first broke last year, many believed they would go the way of others - kicked into grass by stonewalling moves such as creating committees to report years later. But the court has managed to keep momentum into probes when there were signs the government was dragging its heels. This has helped keep issues alive for media and voters, andbolster opposition protests that stalled the last session of parliament.
